Knowing that offsprings of parents with obesity are at a greater risk than other children for being overweight at adolescence, the question remains what are the epigenetic factors that affect obesity.
WeightControl.com Interview with: Gilad Twig, MD, MPH, PhD Head of the Population Health Research Center Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel. Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study?
Response:Heritability of obesity has been widely investigated, but when parental and children’s body weights are compared it is difficult to distinguish between genetic relationship and shared lifestyle. In this study we compared parents and their children’s body weights all measured at age 17.
The vast majority of people who are struggling with their weight will not have two faulty copies of the gene and their GP should be their first port of call.
WeightControl.com Interview with: Dr. Mattia Frontini, Sr BHF Fellow Associate Professor Cellular Biology Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences University of Exeter Medical School Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
RILD Building, Barrack Road, Exeter,
WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The initial discovery of the gene and its faulty copy, ten years ago, was motivated by the need to develop a genetic test for a difficult to type, using traditional methods, blood group known as Vel. After this discovery was made, we discovered also that the differences in these genes that exist in the population are associated to tiny changes in the blood red cell parameters.
When the UK Biobank data became available we analysed these to determine if having the faulty copy of the gene had an effect on health. We found that people with two faulty copies of the gene (about 1 in 5000) are heavier than those who don’t. They have altered lipids in their blood and they use less energy given the same caloric intake. The excess going being stored as fat.
